Mona Lisa’s Smile – Endearing Enigma or Bell’s Palsy?

The Mona Lisa is perhaps the most celebrated painting in the world. There could be few equals in terms of the number of eyes that have cast glances, furtive or deep, flitting or lingering on this small piece of immortal art. An archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as “the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world.”

Just over 30 inches (77 cm) long and about 21 inches (53 cm) wide, made with oil on a white Lombardy poplar panel, it is one of the most valuable paintings in the world. It holds the Guinness World Record for the highest known painting insurance valuation in history at US$100 million in 1962(equivalent to about $870 million in 2021).

What has made the Mona Lisa the most famous picture in the world? Of all the 6,000 paintings in the Louvre, why is it the only one to be exhibited in a special box, set in concrete and protected by two sheets of bulletproof glass? Why do thousands of visitors throng to see it every day, ignoring the other masterpieces, which surround it?

Experts across the globe attribute to the painting, novel qualities like her enigmatic expression, its monumental composition, the subtle sublimation of forms, and the atmospheric illusionism. So much has been written on this painting as also about the painting and so much research has gone into every aspect of its creation, that any additional information is quite unlikely to be discovered and brought to light.

The Mona Lisa, or La Gioconda, was Lisa Gherardini, the wife of wealthy Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo. She would have been in her mid-20s when she sat for her portrait before Leonardo da Vinci in 1503. Leonardo worked on the Mona Lisa — or La Joconde as she is known in France — for four years, but like so many of his works, the painting was never completed. However, it had already achieved fame by the mid-16th century, owing to the innovations that had gone into its production — particularly in material, brush technique, and varnish — and its subject’s famously coy smile, which is said to be the result of musicians and clowns the artist kept on hand to prevent her from growing bored.

Renaissance art historian Giorgio Vasari, the most authentic chronicler on this subject, wrote, “Leonardo undertook to paint, for Francesco del Giocondo, the portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife.” Monna in Italian is a polite form of address originating as ma donna – similar to Ma’am, or My Lady in English. This became Madonna, and its contraction monna. The title of the painting, though traditionally spelled Mona in English, is spelled in Italian as Monna Lisa (mona being a vulgarity in Italian).

Francesco commissioned this painting for their new home, and to celebrate the birth of their second son, Andrea. The Italian name for the painting, La Gioconda, means ‘jocund’ (‘happy’ or ‘jovial’) or, literally, ‘the jocund one’, a bon mot on the feminine form of Lisa’s married name, Giocondo. In French, the title La Joconde has the same meaning.

Leonardo never gave the painting to the Giocondo family. He left it in his will to his favoured apprentice Salaì. It was acquired by King Francis I of France, and is now the property of the French Republic, on permanent display at the Louvre, Paris since 1797.

The Heist of 1911

Would Mona Lisa have been as famous as it is today if its theft in 1911 had not taken place? The three Italians led by Perugia, an erstwhile employee at the Louvre who stole it, later claimed they wanted to restore the painting to Italy, its rightful owner. It took a full 28 months before the painting could be traced to a basement in Florence because the theft had become an instance of national shame for France and the property was too hot for anyone to even mention in the market. Such was the magnitude of hype the theft had created that at one stage American tycoon and art lover J.P. Morgan was suspected of commissioning the theft. Pablo Picasso was also considered a suspect and was questioned.

The Smile

It is without doubt the smile that has smitten, mesmerised, captivated and beguiled art lovers and the common man alike for nearly 600 years. But what was the lady in the painting thinking of or going through as she smiled? Several fascinating theories have tried to answer this question.

A doctor published one such shocking report this day, the 28^th of January, in 1987. He claimed that her smile was a distortion caused by a medical condition known as Bell’s Palsy.  It is a nervous disorder arising out of swelling or pinching of a facial nerve that causes weakness on one side of the face leading to a corner of the mouth to droop. Dr. Kedar Adour thus attributed Mona Lisa’s mysterious smile to this disorder making her smile a little higher on the left side of her face and her left eye to be narrower than her right.

Even earlier, a British doctor Kenneth Keele in 1959 had reported that the woman in the painting had a “puffy neck” caused by an enlarged thyroid gland, a sure sign that she was pregnant. And in 2011, Canadian scientists subjected the painting to extensive three-dimensional laser and infra-red scans, and concluded that if not pregnant, Mona Lisa had just given birth.

Louvre employees, the official keepers of the Mona Lisa, have never ventured an opinion on this fascinating aspect.

Mona Lisa was about 24 when Leonardo made her sit for the portrait, and Leonardo was 51. She outlived both Leonardo and her husband and had five children. She never disclosed the secret of her smile. If she were alive today, would the lady tell? Or just smile enigmatically? Irrespective, for lovers of beauty and the beauty in art around the world, her smile shall remain a joy for ever.